A Ghost Story

As if the macabre specter of a ghost, albeit in a white sheet with two black eye-holes, were not enough for a spooky film, David Lowery endeavored to shoot and edit his 2017 film, A Ghost Story, using a relatively fast 33 frames per second in shooting the ghost moving, and editing without music so the story-world’s supernatural element would be subtly apparent. Although a prognosticator delivers a long philosophical monologue at a party somewhere in the middle of the film, Lowery does not characterize the meaning of the film in terms of that monologue’s point that the universe will eventually end so a person should live each day as if it were the last day of one’s life. Of course, none of us need worry about the universe burning up any time soon, so from that standpoint we can expect to live full lives without being nihilist on a daily basis. Fortunately, the meaning of the film, Lowery states in an interview, is not to live each day as if it is your last day. A more interesting question is whether the film is an exponent of nihilism as the real, ontological state of existence, or whether human fulfillment can fill human hollowness with the fullness of experienced life. Moreover, does a supernatural dimension, such as a heaven, exist such that human souls can depart from the human condition and even loved ones while still existing (after death). In other words, does holiness transcend hollowness? The latter may pertain more to the phenomenal realm of lived human existence than to the noumenal realm of things as they are in themselves, and thus what each of us really is.

The full essay is at "A Ghost Story." 

All of Me

The transmigration of souls is usually associated with reincarnation. In the film, All of Me (1984), at the moment of death, a person’s soul can be put “into” another person who is alive such that both people “co-exist” consciously and can control the same body. The comedy is at its best when Steve Martin, who plays Roger Cobb, into whose body the dying millionaire, Edwina Cutwater, is transferred, physically enacts an alternating struggle between Edwina’s feminine movements and Roger’s masculine movements. Martin’s physical talent is amazing. The tension within Roger’s (and Edwina’s) shared body is gradually resolved as the two “souls” become friends—attesting to the underlying goodness of Edwina in stark distinction to the sordid character of Terry Hoskins, who has falsely agreed to let Edwina share her body—two souls and one body—instead of Roger’s in exchange for $20 million. It is the goodness of Roger and the unfolding of Edwina’s goodness up against the absolute badness of Terry that underlies the film’s narrative. In the end, the good win out, and Terry’s soul is put into a horse when Edwina’s soul is transferred by a Hindu guru from Roger to Terry. With Terry’s body all to herself, Edwina is free to become romantically involved with Roger. The good souls win and the squalid one is put in a horse. The upshot is that justice does indeed apply to souls.

The full essay is at "All of Me."

The Apocalypse

In the film, The Apocalypse (2002), the Apostle John is a prisoner at an island-prison because he is a Christian. He is having visions of heaven in the last of days and Valerio, another prisoner is dutifully writing what John dictates so various church congregations can know of John’s revelations. He is esteemed so much by other Christians that he feels pressure to steer them to God’s truth. Too much esteem, I submit, is being directed to John, as he is, as he admits, only a human being, though he does get caught up in his own direct access to God, as in being able to know the will of God. This is a temptation for any religionist, especially religious leaders. Although subtly, the film conveys John’s over-reaches though without having another character explicitly refer to them as such.

The full essay is at "The Apocalypse."

Eternal You: AI after Death

The documentary, Eternal You (2024), is one film that zeros in on the use of AI to contact loved ones who have died. As the marketing departments of the tech companies providing these products say, AI can deliver on what religion has only promised: to talk with people beyond the grave. Lest secular potential buyers be left out, AI can provide us with “a new form of transcendence.” Nevermind that the word, transcendence, like divinity and evil, is an inherently religious word. Nevermind, moreover, that the product is actually only a computer simulation of a person, rather than the actual person direct from heaven or hell. The marketing is thus misleading. In the film, a woman asks her dead husband if he is in heaven. “I’m in hell with the other addicts,” he answers. She is hysterical. Even though people who write computer algorithms cannot be expected to anticipate every possible question that AI could be asked and every response that it could give, government regulation keeping the marketing honest and accurate can significantly reduce the risk that is from AI’s use of inference (inductive) and probability that are beyond our control to predict and even understand. 

The full essay is at "Eternal You."